How to Recover a Lost Art in 2020

Dear Reader,

A  brown cardboard storage box contains cards, letters, and notes I've received for the past 50 years.

Their messages were kind, or they came from special people. They struck a cord with me for a variety of reasons, and I've never had the heart to get rid of them ... for the past 50 years. The box can no longer contain its bounty!

The recent influx of papers and letters from my  Dad's life combined with mine to fill a good portion of a closet. Time to glean a few and toss the rest.

The result: I've spent hours reading and lost in memories. My grandmother's rounded, neat cursive, wishing me well. Dad's strong, bold handwriting with something humorous to share. Friends, some long gone, remembered by their writing even before I read the name.  Cards from my boys when printing their names was a laudable feat. Every handful or so, there would be one from my mother, a prolific letter writer. Her familiar severe right slant and unclear letters had me rereading and decipthering as her handwriting always did - letters to me at college, in China, from her new home in South Carolina.

I pictured those many hands I loved as they wrote with their arthritis or age spots or broken nails, and I heard their voices come to life on the page.

Finally, I landed on a thank you note from my mother in 1999. A thank you note from my mother! Whatever would the woman who gave me breath and met my needs for the first quarter of my life have to thank me for? But she did ... and I've framed the card, her love, and her unforgettable handwriting.

Today, I answered some email and sent a few texts, but there wasn't  one memorable piece of handwriting among them. No cursive to reflect personhood, nothing worth framing, no picturesque reminders of a hand or a life. Just Times New Roman 12 in featureless black and white.

Perhaps this implies enough about teaching our children cursive in elementary school. Like so many other things, memorable is being sacrificed on the altar of quick, fast, and modern.

For over 30 years my career involved teaching teens grammatical rules and proper writing style. Now, I am flabbergasted when I realize my texts are dashed off with incomplete sentences, without end marks, minus capitals and punctuation. Whatever happened to the Mrs. Walczak of eighth grade English class? Several generations of teenagers must be equally flummoxed about the years they spent learning English grammar that have been blown to the icloud in social media.

Here's a challenge for 2020: let's return to the art of letter and note writing ... even if only once a week. How do we recover this lost art? Simply, do it. Pick a recipient who could use a bit of joy and scratch away. I realize it will cost a postage stamp and a bit of time, but consider it memory making for someone, carving kind words into forever.  A day is brightened, encouragement shared, when the mailbox produces an envelope with your handwriting. The message doesn't have to be so meaningful that it is saved for 50 years, but it can exude friendship and love, poignant enough to frame with your fingerprints and style embossed across its face.

No simpler, less intimidating, more inspiring way to lift someone up.

But the most life-changing letters I've ever received are compiled as epistles from the likes of the Apostles Paul, Peter, James, and John whose goal was to communicate the Word of God. Originally recorded on parchment or sheep skin, they stand witness for eternity to God's everlasting love, and each bears the very handprint of God.

That box of letters I've kept for 50 years? Most of them are still in the box and back in the closet. Who would have the heart to dispose of such memories and kindness? Not me.

Continuing to pen in cursive and
 challenging you to enrich your connectedness ...
 with a letter.

Love,

Your Friend on Layton.  

10 Ways to Make 2020 Matter

The years fly off the calendar any more. Wasn't it just 2017? 

And as the years disappear, so have many people in our lives. 2019 left a hole in our family.

Perhaps it's my perception of the relentless march of time or perhaps it's the loss of people important  to us, but the need to make every year matter seems increasingly necessary.

Maybe I'm just getting old.

But as I look down the next 365 days, I'd like every one to matter. Who knows? Perhaps this year will only have 263. How can we live every day to its maximum potential? Here are some thoughts to consider to make 2020 a year that matters ... 

• Step out of your comfort zone. My living room is my comfort zone. So I need to get off the couch and get out. Do something for the world that requires some courage, some initiative, and a little thinking outside the box. Volunteer to build houses with Habitat for Humanity in West Virginia or teach in a school in Central America or help in a soup kitchen in Scranton. Think out of your neighborhood, out of your socio-cultural milieu, out of the country. Live sacrificially.
• Give ... to the local homeless shelter or food bank, to your church, to a needy single mom.
  
  Give coats, gloves, hats, toiletries, and bedding to organizations like the Women's Resource Center or the Catherine McAuley Center. Give to worthwhile children and teen programs, like CareNet and Youth for Christ. Give your time and energy  to fix a broken door knob for a single woman or babysit for a mother of toddlers or take an older person to the doctor and out to lunch. Selflessness is the key.
• Begin a new friendship with an elderly person in a nursing home or a shut-in on your street, with a foreign university student who needs help with his English or an immigrant mom who is having trouble buying groceries in her new culture, with the children of a single mom, with the new family in the neighborhood.
• Cultivate old friendships. Facebook your college roommate, whom you haven't
  
  seen in 4 decades, and plan a get-together. Skype your cousin in Scotland. Email your high school chums for a lunch date. Seek one-on-one time with your old friends. Maybe meet every week with that one soul sister whose encouragment never fails.
• Use your creativity. Build furniture, write a book,  knit for veterans in the local veterans' hospital, paint your bedroom or a picture, sew a quilt, fix the car, make jewelry, bake. Use your creativity to brighten someone's day.
• Read. A lot. Magazines, newspapers, biographies, novels. Keep challenging your mind
  with information. Join a book club where you can discuss ideas.
• Walk ... in places that draw your heart to reflection and awe and fire your brain with the
  
  grandeur of the Creator God. Walk the beach, walk the woods, walk at the lake. Walk at Lackawanna State Park. The park has 80 miles of trails. My grandson and I have made it our goal to walk all of them together. We've been doing it for 3 years and marking our completed trails on the park map. This year, we'll keep walking. Look up on your trek to the beauty around you.
• Plan family events. Big ones, like Olympic games in the backyard, with the
  
  kids, grandkids, cousins, aunts, and uncles. Include  a campfire and a karaoke competition. Or a camping trip, a day at Knobel's, a raft trip on the Delaware. Do some creative planning so no one will forget that family time. Or small family times, like a movie, a board game, a special themed dinner. Make memories this year with the ones you love.
• Invest in the children of your family. Get down on your knees with those kids or grandkids and play Hot Wheels or baby dolls or pony ranch or whatever they want for an hour - without leaving the room or going for coffee. 
• Get to know God. If you haven't been to church in 50 years, go ... time's running out.
  
  If you have deep soul questions that have never been answered about God, let me know ... I can hook you up with someone who can help. If you've accepted Jesus as your Savior Redeemer, walk more deeply into relationship with Him. If you know Him, heaven is your final destination. Make getting to know God the ultimate goal of your year ... after all, this year may only contain 169 days.

And in everything, give thanks. Grateful living changes attitude and perspective.

Looking to make 2020 a year that matters ...

On Layton.